Santos is a global energy company committed to increasingly cleaner energy and fuels production, supplying critical fuels such as oil and gas in a more sustainable way through decarbonising projects while we all transition to cleaner fuels.

Santos is one of Australia's biggest domestic gas suppliers and a leading LNG supplier in the Asia Pacific region, working in partnership with local communities, providing local jobs and business opportunities, safely and sustainably developing natural gas resources and powering industries and households.

Program: Reusable lunch box trial

Premier's Awards category:  Environment - Energy

Santos have established a successful reusable lunch container programme across the Cooper Basin, eliminating over 80,000 disposable lunch containers per year from landfill and supporting Santos’ target of Zero Waste to Landfill by 2050 - stacked inside each other the containers would be higher than the Eiffel Tower.

The Operations Support team, spread across Moomba, Ballera, Tirrawarra, Dullingari and Jackson, recognised how problematic the plastic disposable lunch containers are to the environment and aimed to eliminate these containers from landfill at our fixed and mobile camp facilities.

The need for reusable lunch containers and adequate dishwashing facilities was identified as a practical solution to replace the use of plastic disposable containers.

The project enabled a transformation in the way the local team reused products, contributing to integrated change across the business and delivering sustainable efficiencies.

The success of the programme was the enthusiastic participation of the resident population. This excellent environmental initiative was embraced, encouraged, and promoted from within, with the workforce bringing each other along on the journey. Without this buy-in, we would have struggled to successfully remove plastic containers from the Cooper Basin.

This project has helped transform the philosophy of waste management from waste ‘disposal’ to disciplined waste avoidance and reuse. Resident education campaigns promote the methodology of reuse as opposed to recycle or dispose and clear deliverables and timelines for all residents to convert to reusable products were developed.

As a result of the project’s success, it now being rolled out Santos wide, with GLNG coming on board, and has been the impetus for efforts to remove all disposable coffee cups from Santos sites – delivery of reusable coffee cups to the Cooper Basin is expected soon. It has been exciting to see the reusable lunch box programme inspire many contractors across Moomba to also remove disposable coffee cups from their operations because of the environmental and financial benefits that can be achieved.

Keep up to date with Santos

Visit their website: https://www.santos.com/

Follow Santos on social media: